Regarding your other question, I'm not sure if that will work because, when SetArtProvider() is called, the old art provider is destroyed, which in this case is the one you wish to set. So I would expect in this case some spurious behavior.

Yes, there is. You must create an art provider that is custom-tailored to implement pane-specific drawing routines. This might sound involved, but it's really not that bad. Just derive an art provider from the default art provider which looks for a specific pane.

I'm sorry, right now I don't have time to program this for you. What you need to do is quite straightforward. You need to create a class derived from wxAuiDefaultDockArt (which is in aui). Override the following method: